Hearts' 98 cup-winning team would 'win the league now', claims former coach and why Vladimir Romanov reign annoyed him

The 1998 Scottish Cup winning team will always be revered at Hearts. After all they were the group of players which ended the club’s 36-year wait for a trophy.

Billy Brown, the assistant manager of the side under Jim Jefferies, reckons if the team were playing now they would win the league.

Hearts defeated Rangers 2-1 in the final at Celtic Park with a team full of internationals, or soon to be internationals.

In the league they finished just seven points behind winners Celtic.

Brown, who revealed all the preparation for the final went out of the window in under two minutes, is full of admiration for the group of players and picked the one individual he wish was playing for the club now.

“Jim and I had a philosophy that we always picked a team to win, not to a pick a team not to lose,” he told Si Ferry on Open Goal. We always did that. We played Rangers three or four times that season, they beat us all the time. We were the best team but couldn’t beat them.

“So we thought change the philosophy, play 4-3-3, show them in the pitch, keep them in the middle of the park and have a go at the end. We score after a minute and a half and thought ‘what do we do now?’.

“I liked all the players in that team. We had finely honed it down to about 16 or 17 players that we wanted. They were all good boys and we had the two hungriest football players I’ve ever come across in my life. Colin Cameron and Neil McCann. Hungry boys.

“That team, as far as I’m concerned, would win the league the now. They were good players. We had David Weir and Paul Ritchie.”

He added: “I wish he (Cameron) was playing for the Hearts the now because he is exactly what they need. They are missing someone going box to box and he never gave in.”

Annoyance

Brown returned to Hearts with Jefferies under Vladimir Romanov, but the period in which the Russian-born Lithuanian businessman was in charge at Tynecastle has left a sour taste in the former coach’s mouth.

“I know Hearts won two cups at that time but it wasn’t a good time,” he said. “Hearts lost a lot of their reputation.

“Team changed every week, they brought boys in who dived all over the place. For a club the standard of Hearts it didn’t do them any good.

“It did annoy me because they are a great football club with great supporters and they should never have been brought down to that level.”